What Are Little Boys Made Of?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

David Benkof: Behind the Mask

At first glance, David Benkof appears to be a young gay man who believes that same-sex marriage will damage the institution of marriage, that there are better options for gay couples than marriage, that the community should join him in prioritizing other more pressing issues, and that the marriage discussion is harming the efforts of gay couples in red states to get recognition for their unions. He also claims that he’s a gay columnist, that he speaks for an influential collection of gay thinkers, and that he is part of the gay and lesbian community and that he shares our goals and dreams. But none of that is true.

“Repeat After Me”: The Reparative Therapy Echo Chamber

The April 2008 edition of the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports featured a new report from NARTH. Written by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, past president Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, the report carries the unwieldy but self-descriptive title, “Clients perceptions of how reorientation therapy and self-help can promote changes in sexual orientation.” While the title describes what the authors meant to show — how clients describe the benefits of reparative therapy — the report itself actually illustrates something very different: the ex-gay movement’s remarkable ability to instill an almost robot-like parroting of ex-gay rhetoric among their clients.

Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?

The Toronto Star said that a new study “discover[ed] a new strain” of a super-bug “hitting gay men.” Headlines in Britain screamed, “Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco’s gay community,” and anti-gay extremists across America spread the alarm that gays were introducing another plague into “the general population.” But there was a small problem with all of this: None of it is true!

Paul Cameron’s World

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

At last, the truth can now be told.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

Review: The Gay Report

When Karla Jay and Allan Young published The Gay Report in 1979, it quickly a favorite source of statistics for many anti-gay extremists. But before you accepts these statistic at face value, you should examine the inner workings of this survey very carefully. What you learn might surprise you.

Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.

Chinese fascination with imaginary gay Brits

Timothy Kincaid

January 2nd, 2014

Most of us have heard of fan fiction, the amature storytelling of romantic liaisons between real or fictional characters who have no relationship otherwise. And we probably are familiar with yaoi, the boy with boy romantic animation that is created and consumed in mass by young Japanese women.

But I was unfamiliar with the fascination that many Chinese seem to have with the BBC show Sherlock. (BBC)

When UK Prime Minister David Cameron visited China in December and opened an account on weibo, China’s version of Twitter, the top request for him was to speed up the release of the new series of Sherlock. That day finally arrived.

The show was launched on Youku, a Chinese video-hosting website similar to YouTube, just two hours after its premiere in Britain. It got almost 3m hits overnight, and weibo has been lit up by fans discussing the new episode.

Nor was I aware that many Chinese viewers seem intent on seeing Holmes and Watson as a couple.

But the most fervent fans are those intent on finding a gay subtext to the relationship between Holmes and Watson. There are numerous Chinese sites that host Sherlock fan fiction, depicting the detectives as a couple. And among this group of fans, many identify themselves as funu or “rotten women” – young women who like gay stories.

“I have to say, this show is catering to our rotten girls’ taste more and more,” said one fan.

“Sherlock tortures Watson a thousand times, and Watson loves him like his first love,” wrote another. “I’ve waited two years, and it didn’t disappoint me.”

Hyhybt

Priya Lynn

I know heterosexual men often find lesbian sex titilating (hee hee, I said tit) but I’m fairly surprised that heterosexual women are turned on by the thought of two men having sex. Surprised, but pleased.

Lucrece

It is important to know that this slash fiction and yaoi by large are consumed by and made FOR women.

Gay men generally go for bara, which usually features bulkier guys (running the gamut from just muscular/athletic, to bear/otter looking, some chunky), and is often pornographic.

In fact, most of slash and yaoi features fairly androgynous, not too masculine men because the appeal to women is seeing an ambiguous male that they could sub for emotionally without feeling threatened like they would inhabiting a female character.

If you look at yaoi and slash, there’s usually a “dominant masculine/submissive feminine” dynamic between two males, following heterosexual relationship roles. Rarely do you see in same sex male slash fiction egalitarian relationships or interactions just between two guys that don’t lean toward opposing poles of masculinity/femininity.

Patrick C

The BBC production of Sherlock explicitly plays with the sexual orientation of Sherlock and Dr Watson. Dr Watson is repeatedly questioned if he is gay. Other characters have assumed Dr Watson is Sherlock’s boyfriend. Dr Watson is once described as the “confirmed bachelor”, with the implication he is gay. When discussing Sherlock, Dr Watson and the landlady (whose name escapes me) comments that they can’t remember him having any boyfriend or girlfriend. And, quite honestly, in the final episode of Season 2 I thought Sherlock and Moriarty were going to kiss.

The show is wonderfully and very ambiguously done.

Ben In Oakland

Patrick, the original Sherlock holmes was pretty ambiguous in that particular subject.

Eventually, dr. Watson marries, but we don’t have to worry long about Mary Marston. she soon dies and Holmes and Watson are together again. Holmes shows no interest in women, except for Irene Adler, and then, it is over the top admiration, as if her name were actually Cher or Barbra or Ms. Hepburn.

I think what you’re referring to as “fan fiction” is more commonly known as “slash fiction” and is largely created by women. (I had female friends who were heavily into Kirk/Spock slash fiction.)

Priya Lynn: The manga subgenre of boys’ love (a/k/a “yaoi”) is created overwhelmingly by women and directed toward teenage girls and young women, which comprise something over 85% of the audience. It ranges all the way from very romantic and quite innocent to fairly steamy, depending on how the artist figures out how to get around Japanese obscenity laws.

So the emergence of the “funu” as devotees of a Holmes/Watson relationship isn’t really very surprising.

Lord_Byron

From what I understand from reading Yaoi prior is that it is pretty easy to get around the obscenity laws. All it takes is either some steam slightly obscuring view or just a black bar slightly under the head of the penis. Basically since the YAOI is sold right next to the other stuff you can’t show everything, but how a small black bar that doesn’t hide anything makes it ok is beyond me.

As others said slash fiction and yaoi is often made by straight girls and women for other straight women. My main issue with it is that it often romanticizes rapes and abusive relationships, but that is another issue.

Some of the images can be quite explicit without violating the obscenity laws. I assume, from some of what I’ve seen, that the restriction is on showing the whole penis — halfway inserted into another man’s anus or mouth is apparently OK. Another favorite tactic is to show a blank, penis-shaped area, with no detail.

And yes, there is a tendency sometimes to portray abusive relationships as acceptable, which is one thing that bothers me about the genre.

From what I’ve heard, it’s widely available in Japan — you can buy it in convenience stores, although I’m not sure whether it’s shrink-wrapped the way it is in the States.

And I think it’s funny that the common American pronunciation is “yowie.”

Debbie Red

Lol – as a big fan of slash and yaoi fanfiction, I can tell you there isn’t a television show, popular movie or book that hasn’t been slashed – we love putting the guys together. And in fanfiction (unlike yaoi) the cliche of androgynous or feminine men doesn’t always hold true. (Points quite explicitly at Supernatural fanfiction and backs away with a grin.)

Priya Lynn

The Lauderdale

“Most of us have heard of fan fiction, the amature storytelling of romantic liaisons between real or fictional characters who have no relationship otherwise.”

That’s not fanfiction, that’s slash. Fanfiction runs the gamut. It’s non-commercial stories written by fans* of works created by others. Slash is a subtype of fanfiction. Some would call it a subgenre.

(Speaking as one who has written much fanfiction over the years, but no slash.)

______
*Er, at least usually they’re fans. Sometimes you will see some righteous skewering of the source matter. For example, many Twilight fanfiction writers evidently despise the source material and write fanfiction in response, whether to mock it or to “improve” on it.

Jean-Michel

The headline is “Watson doesn’t fancy Holmes? The Sherlock creatives interpret the gay relationship: As the BBC drama returns for a third series, Watson will soon hold a wedding, and some of the creatives respond to the question of the detective’s feelings.” The interesting thing (IMO) is that it uses the BBC article as a jumping-off point, which is a common tactic since it gives a sort of “plausible deniability” (i.e. “we’re not the ones saying this, we’re just passing it on from the foreign media”).

As you might guess from that, there isn’t really anything new there; it mostly just resurrects old-ish quotes from the cast and crew. The headline comes from one of Moffat’s: “I don’t think there is anything that suggests Sherlock is gay, but if he was, he wouldn’t fancy John”—to which one of the commenters replies “Right, he should fancy Moriarty.” Like many Chinese fans, the commenter actually calls Moriarty “Mo Niang,” which is hard to translate but is basically a roundabout way of calling Moriarty a bottom.